


Enchant Me (For I Know Not How to Live)

by ornateslime



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Black Hermione Granger, Harry Potter is Salazar Slytherin, M/M, Post-Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Reincarnation, The dementor's lore gets an upgrade, Updating the tags as I go, starts in third year
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23056597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ornateslime/pseuds/ornateslime
Summary: Salazar, cursed them, he cursed them. Cursed Godric, cursed Rowena, cursed Helga. And for the first time in a long time, Salazar cried, before his consciousness was swept away and consumed by flames.Death… Death was dark.There was nothing. He was finally at peace, he felt lighter than ever. There wasn't the weight of betrayal and the world on his shoulders.Salazar was finally in a place that he could be open. A place where no one was around, so he wandered the darkness. Only able to see his own body, the peeling skin and emerald blood staining his hands.Then, there was light.
Relationships: Godric Gryffindor/Salazar Slytherin, Harry Potter/???
Comments: 44
Kudos: 249





	1. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Courtesy of my new beta, this chapter has been smoothed out!

“Gift the withering man a drink, for he will tell you the truth.” Was Rowena’s consultation. It was, perhaps, the worst advice that had ever tumbled from her graceful lips. 

Salazar hadn’t been bothered to try and analyze the, perhaps, ambiguous guidance heretofore. He had only skimmed the surface of what was said previously… Rowena had always been more of a philosopher than him, after all. She was always questioning things then subsequently bestowing vague, cryptic answers to herself and whoever may be asking or around her at the moment. Ones that insinuate at the resolution, but never state it undiluted- without the vague and cryptic fanfare of words.

He would often wish that she would just state things outright- she was almost- possibly worse- than the centaurs. Salazar would never make it a point to say anything about it though- he might have, had he actually accumulated the time (He never did, Rowena and the others had ostracized him before he ever could).

Salazar can, even now, recall her eyes. Her gray eyes that had danced and shimmered in amusement, and- at the moment of recollection- hopped from book to book, only to sharpen when they landed on him. At this point in time, Salazar had been the only one in her office atrium with her. Her smokey silver orbs, shimmering with ostensibly infinite intelligence, however, no matter how much she learned, those sparks craved more knowledge. 

She knew something, Salazar can tell with the self-assured way that she carried herself that day. She had been so secure about her natural genius, her natural divinity, as she would call it. She was so sure about the fact that she could do nothing wrong, yet others could set everything awry. Salazar called it, a natural blindness, she was unwilling to see past her beliefs and her ideals- ingraining that everyone should be the same, should think the same- she saw fiery rebellion with disagreements, a fire that needed to be suffocated. She had washed out more people than Salazar could ever hope to count, she battled them with wits and knowledge till they felt like the fool and she the victor. 

This battle, this shimmering of knowledge that he can’t begin even hoping to understand, is exactly what landed Salazar in her athenaeum-like office on that day.

Rowena had been perusing her books, attempting to iron out any kinks that she may see within her sorting. Perhaps, in a way, assuring herself that everything was immaculate. At this time there was only a day before students and apprentices were due to arrive. 

It’s a bitter reflection, the fact that no matter how vigorously Salazar fought with the other founders to try and keep the banal-born in Hogwarts for the summers and holidays. However, as always, in spite of his loud actions and words against it- the children were all sent ‘home’. The banals wouldn’t- don’t- want to understand them, the banal-borns weren’t ever going to safe around them- not in this time. 

Banals tend to kill what they don’t understand- what they don’t want to understand. Fear blinds banals, blinds everyone. Naturally, because of the… abhorrence they willingly maintain, they will strangle the life out of their own children, merely because their child made a doll dance.

Salazar would always, it seemed, maintain the stance that banals couldn’t be trusted, even if the mother created the child. She wouldn’t hesitate to slaughter her daughter for creating stars to stick on a room's ceiling out of pebbles that she found on the roadside. 

Godric, Helga, and Rowena… They didn’t understand this. They weren’t born from banals. They never had to hide their grandeur, overzealous potential. A potential that scared the people around them enough to have them want to slaughter them for their magic like a pig for its meat, on second thought, at least killing the pig had a purpose. Hanging your own son, who is only at the age of three at the gallows for lifting something his father could not.

The others, it was painfully obvious that they never had their own mother try to quash their power with a dilapidated quilt. A quilt that she had made for them before they were born. They never suffocated underneath that old quilt. Salazar didn’t trust the banals as far as he could throw them, the claws of dread consumed them far too much for them to be trusted. To be trusted to take care of the next generation of magicals- magicals of which they were all hoping to one day build a community with, a livelihood.

If he had Rowena on his side, people would have surely listened. Because, Rowena was supposed to be intelligent. Although, she didn’t see- didn’t know, didn’t want to learn- what the banals were like. 

Rowena… she had been raised by her magical mother. Her magically gifted mother who ran a kingdom- The great and fantical kingdom of Eaglesrose. Her magically inclined mother, who wouldn’t hear a word against magic. Then there was her father who was also magical and he was their diplomat, always traveling well the queen ran the territory that fell underneath their jurisdiction. She would never know- nor feel inclined to understand- the struggles of someone like Salazar. Someone who was a thief, who went to and fro, from master to master to learn all he could about controlling his magic. Rowena had grown up loved, her people knew about magic and they loved it… they loved her. 

The kingdom's banals thought of her family as imident offspring from God. As Messiahs. As Miracle Manufactures. She couldn’t possibly perceive- possibly fathom- that people did, in fact, fear and hate those that they couldn’t understand (that they wouldn’t understand, because they refused to listen to reason).

Salazar had been poor, he had run away from his family at a young age (he had only been ten). Salazar had traveled, snuck on ships and wandered all over the world. He learned as much as he could, from everyone he met, no matter how big or small their title. 

The first time that he met Godric, Rowena and Helga was when they all came to him. He was known for healing, for miracles in a small and obscure town. The town had been somewhere off the edge of a beach, a thicket of woods surrounding it. Salazar doesn’t know how they found him and he doesn’t want to know (He doesn't think he ever will). Salazar, earlier that year had bought a decent sized plot of land- nothing like what the banals built palaces and such on, much smaller than that (but enough for him). He built a small cottage on it, a homely little thing, whereas plants covered every other inch of the property. The plants had been both magical and mundane, the things that were edible were carefully fenced off from the ones that he could make into healing slaves and potions. 

The three of them wanted Salazar to heal Rowena’s mother. Salazar had been… skeptical at first. He didn’t want anything to do with them. It was only on the fourth day of them camping out at the local inn and bothering him everyday that he finally caved.

When he finally started talking to them on the journey, he found that himself and Rowena got along quite well. Like a fish to water, they bickered about almost everything, trying to one up the other with the most baffling and strange knowledge that they had. Salazar actually enjoyed it, quite thoroughly (It had been nice to have friends who understood- even if it was just the tiniest bit).

Salazar had also generously enjoyed mangling Godric’s puffed-up ego. Helga… Helga mostly stayed quiet, they talked occasionally about plants and their own knowledge on subjects, but they didn’t spar with words like Salazar would do with Rowena. Helga didn’t engage him in a battle of sharp tongues and dangerous wit like Godric (The man- although Salazar would never admit it- was quite clever and funny when he wished to be).

Salazar snaps out of his reminiscing of long old, bygone days when Rowena clears her throat. Sharp and prim, just like the lady herself.

“I trust you know why you are here, Salazar.” It was more of a statement than a question. Salazar’s own anxiety spikes at the thought that everyone knew something that he wasn’t privy to.

( _ Maybe they finally had gotten bored of him, thought him too dull and droll to continue with them and their brilliant minds and fires, _ Salazar shoves the thought aside)

“No, and I didn’t bother to find out.” Salazar drawls with ease- the art of vocal deception being something he picked up from Helga, surprisingly. “Would you care to enlighten me, Rowena?”

The look that Rowena gave him could have frozen over even the warmest summer day. “We are here to discuss your…” She pauses as if to find the most eloquent wording for the situation at hand, “banishment, from Hogwarts.”

Salazar opens his mouth, incredulous, and chokes out, “So you plan to ostracize me from my own home!”

His voice sounds smoother than he thought it would.

Rage bubbles underneath his skin, his magic making the taste of its acidity almost tangible (he always did have the most emotional magic out of all of them). 

Rowena gives a serene smile, one with many secrets behind it, one that Salazar did not trust. “Don’t say that, Sal. We all thought it would be… detrimental to… expel you from Hogwarts. You aren’t good for the children.” Before Salazar could open his mouth again she continues, “You have been feeding them lies, Sal. Banals aren’t as dangerous as you spin them to be. You are breeding hate and prejudice against them.”

She pauses almost for dramatic effect.

(Salazar’s hands gripped the armrests of his chair too hard, his knuckles turning white at this statement)

She continues, “Besides, Sally, Hogwarts… You’ll find that it isn’t your home anymore.” Another pause, “I hope, that you’ll find… that you’re… not the same you that you were when we built Hogwarts.” She says this with an airy sort of finality, her eyes glinting like the steel in her words. She opens her mouth again- to slander him more no doubt.

“You and the others don’t get to call me that. Not now. Not ever.” He hisses out before she could continue. His heart aches for the loss of the nicknames that Godric had kicked up (a sign of friendship of fitting in, of love).

“You don’t want to see, Rowena! You have never lived- or god forbid- even  _ visited _ the places where some of them live! I know people, Rowena.” Salazar is keeping his voice quiet, but the amount of caustic venom smothering his words is palpable. “The banals, They fear things they don’t understand! They would do anything to ‘right the wrong’. To ‘extract and purge the devil’ out of these children!” Salazar takes a deep breath, and opens his mouth again.

Only to find that Rowena cuts in smoothly, she doesn’t even seem fazed by what Salazar is saying (Only later Salazar would realize that she had been ignoring him). “You, Salazar, are no longer welcome, in or near the lands of Hogwarts ground.” Her face and eyes are stony, she’s made a conviction and is sticking to it. “You have one hour to gather your things and leave, Salazar. Think of it as a last generosity.”

The other founders are in the room suddenly, all Salazar can see is red, he lunges across the desk to grab at Rowena- his wand is in his hands, when did he pick that up?- Godric holds him back. Godric whom Salazar loved, Godric who had seen and learned the most intimate and secret parts of Salazar.

Godric, who  _ knew _ him. And all Godric tells Salazar is; “You can’t be here any longer, Salazar. Just… Just gather your things and leave.”

He says it in a terse cutting voice and something in Salazar had broken at those words. A deep stab of betrayal, a gut wrenching knife tugging at his guts and shoveling out his chest. Salazar should have known. He can never have nice things. Godric, who knew him, was the one to shut the door in his face.

(He’d only suspect later that the pain came from his heart, from having it wrenched out and torn to shreds, by the one he had given it to.)

Salazar… Salazar never came back after that (He never felt like he  _ could _ ). He never settled down, he never went near Rowena’s kingdom, Eaglesrose. Never traveled close to Hogwarts- he didn’t think he even could- he never would, he swore to himself ‘never again’. They had segregated him from them, isolated him from everyone.

Salazar only then considered Rowena’s cryptic proclamation, ‘Gift the withering man a drink, for he will tell you the truth’. The only thing he could think of was the way that they exiled him so willingly. Maybe, maybe if he had given them the drink, his memories, would they have believed him of the truth. Or maybe he was the withering man, in desperate need of a drink. He would have told them had they given him a chance. He would have told them, had they given him that drink of defense. That didn’t change that Godric knew though. He knew and didn’t stop them.

Salazar ignored all of the letters, begging him to come back. He settled in a completely mundane area, filled with banals. He had warded everything, from mail redirects to making his little farmhouse in the middle of a wretched sea of farms unplottable. 

The banals killed him eventually. They caught him healing the child of a friend. A woman in the nearby village, who won his tentative trust. She was married to a priest. Her husband was the one that caught Salazar in the middle of the ritual, and the one that chained him up. Carted him away.

A few days after they got a hold of Salazar, they burned him at the stake. He could still remember the feeling of his flesh burning off, his skin blistering until he couldn’t feel anymore. Salazar, cursed them,  _ he cursed them _ . Cursed Godric, cursed Rowena, cursed Helga. He hated them, hated everyone involved in his petty, pitiful life. And for the first time in a long time, Salazar cried, before his consciousness was swept away and consumed by flames.

Death… Death was dark.

There was nothing. He was finally at peace, he felt lighter than ever. There wasn't the weight of betrayal and the world on his shoulders.

Salazar was finally in a place that he could be open. A place where no one was around, so he wandered the darkness. Only able to see his own body, the black, peeling skin and emerald blood staining his hands.

Then, there was light.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been smoothed out!

Salazar feels like quite the fool for chasing after that condemnable speck of light. The light was an anomaly. Something that, looking back on it, Salazar should, probably, have been wary and suspicious of.

That light had sparked a blossoming of compassionate hope in the depths of his heart. That light had uprooted and overthrown everything that he had previously assumed- because maybe there was something in this postmortem life after all- and he assumed that there would be nothing in this endless pit of swirling ink. And he hadn’t thought of it at the time, the fact that it might be a trap of sorts. Salazar had only thought of the fact that maybe this  _ light _ would put him in a different realm, give him company, somebody,  _ something _ . Maybe… Just maybe, after all this time alone, Salazar could face his ‘friends’ again. 

(He didn’t know if he considered them friends anymore, didn’t know how much of a friend they ever considered him.)

But he could, possibly, face them with dignity. 

(Though he doubted it, the wound ran too deep for him to ever be composed about seeing them again.)

The awkward idea of seeing his ‘friends’ again didn’t slow his stride, in fact, it hardly seemed to matter anymore, because there was _ light _ . Light that was a swirling cacophony of colors. Light and every hue on the spectrum of color- every color other than swirling charcoal that seemed to permeate this place, surround him and lock him away, hidden (He couldn’t compare it to a cellar or cell as it was far too spacious). The color and light… it was not something that Salazar had the… the complete and astounding privilege of witnessing in over the span of eternity. 

The light easily blinded him with its twisting brilliant embellished hues. It overwhelmed him with its dancing… it was like a swirling, dancing, contortionist of colors, the light was everything and nothing, it was an endless cacophony of noise and sound and music, yet at the same time it was as silent as the innocent bodies that swung at the end of the gallows’ ropes.

And Salazar- who would only condemn himself for his jester-like behavior later- didn’t wait around when he saw it, he didn’t wait for the light to start falling apart, until the colors and sound would, eventually, lay limp, dark, and forgotten, to be ignored by all. No, Salazar -with less than a hair's breadth of reasoning- resolved to rush after it, he had not cared what would happen if the writhing colors of light would turn out to be something with malicious intent. For maybe, just maybe, he would finally be freed from this purgatory, finally be laid to rest. The luminous sun-like projection just happened to be the first thing to contravene the shadow seeped world- plane or realm may be a more accurate description, however- this projection had been the first shred of blooming light and color other than the shimmering emerald blood coating his hands.

(The emerald blood mocked him, it was a mockery of what should have been- what he had strangled and slaughtered.)

(A part of him whispered that it was the blood of a life that should have been.)

It had been the leading subject that started breaching the monotony of the boiling sinister fog. It made the promise of something beyond this specific death-realm. Salazar, after all, did have theories that there were others, other destinations, other places, other  _ realms _ .

(Maybe someone who wasn’t as blackened and burnt as he, would see light and have the ability to carve a place out of their realm- have things that they wanted at a mere thought.)

That theory had begun to manifest itself when Salazar had learned, in the time frame of what he presumed to be quite early on, that there was nobody else in this swirling charcoal sand with him.

It was only Salazar, here. He, himself and his thoughts.

Thoughts that often went too dark and too deep for Salazar’s liking.

(But what else was there to do other than reflect and think?)

(Maybe he was stuck here because he was too scared- too dark, bore too many marks of magic that shouldn’t have been allowed. Magic that should never be- should have never been- allowed. Because he required his own special purgatory.)

Salazar, for his part, certainly wasn’t waiting around to see if the dancing light was going to be followed (followed by more dancing, writhing, contortionist lights), because it might never be.

(He has the sneaking suspicion that it never was followed.)

He could, at least, confidently say that before that lustrous orb of squirming color and dazzling brightness (naturally accompanied by a symphony of noise a symphony that, perhaps, never was), there had been nothing to provide any sort of light, even just a spark. The realm of ominous murkiness just didn’t allow it, the suffocating darkness just didn’t play by the rules of having light. 

That starless oubliette had nothing, he couldn’t even find the trapdoor in the ceiling to even possibly escape.

It seems that the escape came to him in the form of that sensational sparkling globe.

Salazar was finally at rest- he had been pulled under the waves of light and the beauty of having something to listen to other than his own, rather treacherous, thoughts. There he remains asleep until someone- or, more accurately, something- finally trips the wire and triggers him to wake up.


	3. Chapter Three

Harry, for all it’s worth, cannot get up off of the old mattress he’s pretty sure that Petunia and Vernon have had longer than he’s been alive- longer than Dudley’s been alive for that matter. When he turns his head slightly, groaning, the small movement of his head crafts a very specific drumming tune of pulsing pain. 

Closing his eyes and bracing for the monstrous headache, Harry pushes himself up off of the battered old mattress. As with seemingly everything that Harry’s ever owned it once belonged to Dudley and perhaps Vernon.

He swings his legs over the edge of the bed, the headache quickly climbing to a migraine with the startling efficiency, something akin to an especially fierce and formidable arrow that smoothly rips from the bow that it was fired from. The arrow expeditiously finds its target and burrows into their flesh, thus a sharp thrumming beat is formed beneath his skin.

Then, naturally, with the pain and the momentous effort of standing up something twists in his gut, writhing like a snake begging to be let loose. It’s an odd feeling, a feeling that Harry imagines possession would be like. Like someone else is trying to take over his conscious- and subconscious for that matter. To wash out all things that were  _ him  _ and replace it with all things that were  _ them _ . 

As tempting as the idea is to let someone else deal with the mess that’s his life, Harry wouldn’t risk it. The possibility of it being Voldemort to override Harry’s mind and body causes Harry to squash the feeling of temptation underneath his metaphorical foot. Stomping, absolutely pulverizing and demolishing that temptation so that it doesn’t even think about rearing its ugly head up again. The allurement of the idea to just let go can lurk in the back of his mind, forgotten, where it belongs.

That doesn’t stop the basilisk that writhes in his stomach, though.

Shaking off the feeling, Harry makes his way out of the house- it’s early enough that if he gets caught he might be able to brush off him leaving as going to the store to pick up last-minute breakfast supplies. Aunt Marge, Her Imperial Condescension, after all, _just_ had to have the _best_ breakfast _every single day_ of her _delightful_ stay (which usually means a full English breakfast, with other things on the side, naturally, that change depending on her mood).

Harry doesn’t exactly know what he’s doing yet, though. Maybe he’ll go to the park on Magnolia Road. Although Harry may not think he knows what he’s going to be doing, his feet have certainly made up their mind, carrying him mindlessly out of the house to the park. Harry would need to be back soon, Marge was due to have an extravagant dinner- one that would take most of the day to prepare and conjure up, Harry suspects that he’ll need to start whipping it up straight after breakfast- with Vernon and Petunia tonight night, after all. Thankfully, it  _ is  _ her  _ last _ day here- not her last night, though. Which is, truly, a pity. When she finally leaves early the next morning Harry will be free of Her Exquisite Tyranny. 

At least… until the next time she visits- which Harry is hoping with every fiber of his being won't be soon. Then he won't need to listen to her repulsive complaining. Really, though, it seems to be everyone’s complaining of everything about him, left, right and center. Harry just considers himself lucky as to not have blown up anything as of yet. Mentally regurgitating the _ Handbook of Do-It-Yourself Broomcare _ happened to be to his great advantage at every waking moment during this hellish week. So, obviously, Harry once again resolves to be forever thankful to Hermoine for sending him the broomstick servicing kit. It has been the only thing keeping him sane and his temper intact, what with Marge's barrage of insults and bitching.

Harry, personally, doesn’t know how anyone can stand that woman especially for days on end. So, here he is, trying to catch a break, feet carrying him to the park that inhabits part of Magnolia Road. The park happened to be somewhere that Harry counted among his safe places; it was the park or his room- places where Dudley and his gang of soon-to-be felons didn’t usually go- they had yet to vandalize the place to Harry’s great surprise. Although Harry was almost positive that the park wouldn't be safe from Dudley and his criminal company, it simply wasn’t to be, too many kids that had the potential of being victims to his fat fists.

Sighing, Harry takes a seat on one of the swings. He sits there and ponders and schemes on what to do when he needs to go back. Poison Marge? They certainly had enough rat poison to do so, but he’s not a felon, unlike Dudley and his crew of gangsters, despite how immensely entertaining the thought is. Harry would ultimately never go through with something like that, he’s too ‘soft’ as Vernon would put it. Too sympathetic, too empathetic. No, he’d never do something like that, he’d feel horrible. After all, Harry is no Tom Riddle.

Harry knows that he’s no Tom Riddle and yet… There _ has _ been darkness settling in the back of his mind lately. It started with Harry’s first dose of Diagon Alley, when he was eleven it was like a small jolt of electricity in his veins, seeping down to the bones and slowly creeping ever further to Harry’s very soul. The unsettling ire- one that he knew wasn’t his own (as his own mainly revolved around the Dursleys and Voldemort)- established its home in the back of his mind. It seemed to fancy creeping up at the most inopportune moments. Mainly that of when Harry’s own anger flared and when he lost even the smallest semblance of control on his own negative emotions.

It was perplexing and unpleasant, the anger against something that he doesn’t know, but knows that it was most definitely not his own. Harry… he doesn’t tell anyone about it. He does not want to worry them over something so silly as not being able to handle his emotions, that is if they _even_ _are_ his own. The emotions could be something to do with Voldemort or something else entirely, maybe the emotions are just something that he doesn’t know how to identify. 

Harry absentmindedly checks the time on his beat-up wristwatch- something that he repaired of Dudley’s, of course.

Harry glances at the cracked watch on his wrist (it had been among the many broken things inhabiting the smallest bedroom of Number Four Privet Drive), it’s time to head back it seems. The Dursley’s will be up soon, and they won't be happy if he isn’t there and already making breakfast fit for kings, scratch that, an entire kingdom is what it takes to feed Dudley, Marge, and of course, Vernon. Petunia, for the record, is a rather light eater.

Harry painstakingly lifts himself up and off the swing, cracking his back as he stretches before the slow trek  _ home _ , that is if that appalling house could even be called that. It certainly didn’t feel like a home, neither did Harry actually actively consider the house of Number Four Privet Drive a home. It’s not like anyone knew that though, nor did they ever bother to ask.

Harry cracks open the door and slips through, almost noiselessly, almost. 

Soon enough the crackling of bacon and sausage is filling the spotless kitchen. Vernon had already told Harry that this going away breakfast, lunch and dinner just had to be  _ special and perfect. _ Hence, Harry is managing to create a full English Breakfast with a few extras. Those extras not limited to but including; crêpes and eggs benedict. Eggs benedict being Marge’s favorite and crêpes being for Vernon and Dudley, the pigs. They didn’t even enjoy the crêpes for what they were, just piling an entire mess of sugar on top of them, the poor things.

Harry gets the vague idea that one of them- or both- may or may not die from their abundant obsession and consumption of all things sugary.

Petunia is the first one up, besides Harry, as always. If there is one thing that Harry can admire about his Aunt it had to be her inner clock’s punctuality. Always getting up at the same time every day without fail. Although, Harry supposes, that there is another thing… that would be his Aunts spick and span house, everything is always in the same place, neat and orderly. Made it ridiculously easy to find whatever it is that anyone ever was looking for.

  
Petunia doesn’t even spare Harry a glance, just starts taking the full plates out and placing them on the table. Harry snorts internally, of course, she has been doing this ever since Marge came. Had to make it look like she had been the one to make the food. 

It takes a bit longer for the rest of the house to wake up, but when it does there is a flurry of activity at the table. Marge, Dudley and Vernon stuffing their faces. Petunia comes into the kitchen and only when all of the food is completed goes back out and sits daintily at the table with the rest of them.

Petunia, Harry absentmindedly reflects, has got to be the best looking out of everyone situated at that dining table, and that’s saying something. At least to Harry it is, considering he always had thought of her as horse-like. 

Harry glances at Marge, catching her in the act of laying her plate on the floor for her dear old bulldog, Ripper. Harry barely suppresses a disgusted shudder, at the very sight of this act. 

The rest of the day until dinner is spent much like their predecessors; avoiding Marge, doing chores for Aunt Petunia- which consisted of cooking the overly flamboyant dinner, though unlike the others he didn’t have any time to be lazing about in his room until dinner was to be made. 

When the greatly anticipated final banquet of the stay does roll around, finally, Harry is in the kitchen with Petunia. Both of them, surprisingly, are working on a good riddance feast (at least in Harry’s mind it’s labeled as such) for the illustrious Aunt Marge. 

It wasn’t until she hit a nerve with her comment of, “A no-account, good-for-nothing, lazy scrounger who-” on his dad did Harry finally have enough. Not even mentally reciting the  _ Handbook of Do-It-Yourself Broomcare _ could save Aunt Marge from his temper this time. 

It certainly didn’t help that the viper-like coil of dusky twilight anger in the back of his mind seemed to be thriving with him finally snapping. 

So, he blew her up.

And, no he didn’t regret it, not after he got his things, not after he got onto the Knight Bus, not even after he settled into a room that Tom gave him.

No, Harry didn’t regret his actions and that.

That was slightly worrying.


	4. Ch. 4: Forgotten Memories; Remember Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update will also be in two chapters, as fives was too small to go alone, and five wouldn't have flowed smoothly with four.

The days marching towards returning to Hogwarts slipped through Harry’s fingers, the closer that approaching the scarlet train came, the faster the days seemed to be gliding away. And within the speeding days, the twisting basilisk in the depths of Harry’s stomach seemed to be writhing more. Seemingly from excitement, this seemed to be a good deduction, as the familiar cloudy anger had morphed into something resembling excitement. All Harry was trying to do- with all of his might, he might add- was to ignore the writhing and twisting  _ thing _ in the pits of his stomach. A thing, that was being surprisingly ecstatic for something that had been clouding his mind with damp clouds always waiting to pour out their negativity. There was also the fact that the feeling felt foreign, almost as if it wasn’t his own- but that was silly, if it wasn’t his than whose was it? Nevertheless, Harry was attempting to enjoy his time with Ron and Hermione. It seemed that he was just barely managing to ignore the foreign feelings until they were reduced to just a lurking promise of  _ something’s going to happen _ in the shadows of his mind.

When they, finally, all arrive on platform nine and three-quarters, Harry is beside himself. The gleaming engine and body was and is something that will never fail to knock Harry’s breath away. Harry is standing, waiting for the time to drag Hermione and Ron into the beauty of a train, when Mr. Weasley pulls Harry aside with a quiet; “Harry,”

When he’s finally free, after explaining that he already knew about the Black situation, Harry practically runs onto the train so that it doesn’t leave him behind. When they- both Ron and Hermione as well as himself- finally find a compartment to talk in, as the train is well into the rolling green hill scenery.

The compartment that they managed to find only had one occupant- on Hermione’s words he was one; “Professor R. J. Lupin,”

She read this off of the sleeping man’s (who’s also apparently the new DADA professor) battered trunk. This very feat seems to be revolutionary to Ron, who hadn’t bothered to look at his trunk.

They scuttle in and sit on the benches- or in Ron’s case flop down rather ungracefully onto the bench closest to the compartment door. Once they are all settled Harry fills them in on ‘The Black Situation’ as he’s come to call it in his head, Ron and Hermione start raving on the topic of Hogsmeade. They both got their slips signed which leads to Harry commenting that he can’t go. Ron looks absolutely stricken at the very idea of Harry having never gotten his slip signed, and starts with ‘wise’ comments on the situation. This, in a rather roundabout way leads back to their previous conversation about one Sirius Black.

Draco Malfoy, eventually, comes to their compartment and tries to pick a fight, per usual. It seems that the guy can’t even wait until Hogwarts to try and pick a fight. Internally groaning, Harry prepares himself to have a verbal spar with Malfoy. It’s only when Professor Lupin gives a, admittedly, sleepy-sounding snort, does Malfoy realize that he’s even there. Harry uses this fact to his advantage and the new Professor had, in fact,  _ astoundingly _ come in use, as he was the one who got Malfoy to turn around without even whipping out his wand, or opening his eyes, for that matter.

The; “We must be nearly there,” statement from Ron turned out to be particularly cursed when the train slowed down. They aren’t even close to Hogwarts when the train comes to a complete halt.

Hermione, peeking out the window, sweetly and sagely points out, “We can’t be there yet,” the compartment- more like the whole train- plunges into what feels rather like an ice bath composed of dry ice of complete darkness. It felt vaguely familiar, the non-breakable, non-conforming, starless twilight… From where Harry recognized it, he couldn’t say.

Chaos ensued quickly after the peak of nightfall darkness, only when a hoarse voice suddenly joined in with a, “Quiet!” Did they all settle down, Harry connected the dots quite quickly that the voice was none other than the Professor R. J. Lupin that they had been sharing the compartment with.

Soon after the announcement of Professor Lupin being awake, there was a soft, crackling noise. The noise quickly is followed by a shivering light, which turns out to be a fluttering handful of flames that illuminated the Professors tired, scarred face. His eyes, however, are sharp and alert to his surroundings.

The flames seemed to be shaking with more intensity as the Professor stood up, eventually quivering with all it’s flammable might, when the compartment door slides open when the Professor isn’t even to the door yet.

Standing in the sliding doors opening, being marvelously shown off by the quivering flames, is a cloaked figure. A figure that rivaled even Hagrid's height, towering towards the ceiling, it’s face is completely covered with the hood and by shadows that said hood casts even with the shaking flame that’s residing in Professor Lupin's hand.

The only thing that was visible, even if for the slightest of seconds was a hand. A hand that was glistening and slimy looking. A hand that was almost an exact gray in color, and scabbed. A hand that, presumably, looked like the rest of it… like a corpse that had decayed in viscous swamp water.

Then, there was the slow, agonizingly slow, rattling breath that also sparked recognition in the corners of Harry’s mind. The air turned into something colder than ice, Harry felt his breath catch in his chest, the cold was penetrating every inch of him, from his skin, to his bones, to his heart, and to his soul.

Harry’s eyes roll up into the back of his skull, he doesn’t even remember falling.

All Harry remembers is the sickening cold digging its way through his mind and through his soul.


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been completely reworked and edited on 3/15/2020

Dementors, they are… masters of the mind. 

No… That’s not quite right.. More like artists of the very soul.

They have quite perfected the art of their own magic- it’s similar to Legilimency and Occlumency. 

Yet, it doesn’t function quite the same, it’s their own brand or branch magic. Wherever it is that they pull their magic from, nothing else can pull from it. Salazar has- for quite some time now- theorized that they pull their magic from the depths of the earth.

Magical scholars had been theorizing that the earth was round. The proof being the way that the magical plane wraps itself around the planet. The plane with its delicate ley lines, swathe the planet of earth, covering it with the hum of magic. 

People- witches and wizards- skim their magic from the top of the ley lines. Most do at least, once in a while there are those that are able to delve deeper. Still only brushing the top but it’s deeper than others dare to go- that others _can_ go. 

Dementors… They yank up their particular brand of magic from deeper than anyone has ever been _able to pull from._ Their magic, it’s more from the middle layer, close to the bottom, but not quite there yet. 

Salazar believes that there has never been nor likely will ever be, someone who can pull directly from the very roots of magic.

Because of where dementors draw their magic from… It is dangerous. There is a reason as to why they look like dehydrated and slimy _Inferi._ There is a reason as to why dementors pull off the semblance of looking like they are a long _dead_ person. A corpse who was put into a natron bath, that sucked all of the fluids out of their bodies- much like what the Egyptians did when they created their mummies. Then rapidly following they are dumped into a mucilage and slimy _bog_ that overindulged in equally slimy and sludge-like _water_ . Yet, this carcass, this cadaver can _not_ for the _unholy and ungainly life of itself pull that vile water into itself._ So the water settles for the next best option- rotting the corpse and patching its wounds with scabs- like its actually _alive_ \- and covering it with its own clumpy and slimy _self_.

Their magic keeps them alive. So for Salazar, their magic… Well… 

It’s darker and more appalling than Legilimency or Occlumency will _ever_ be. 

No one bothers to research it, as the conducting of the research itself is quite precarious. It would mean, to, possibly, subject yourself to their magic that isn’t just dark but also gruesome and ghastly. 

It would be worse than any dark magic that Salazar has ever studied, that’s a questionless fact. 

Salazar remembers vividly, he remembers the first time that they ran into a dementor. Dementors… They are embodiments of souls that were far too corrupted by heinous magic. Magic that one really _shouldn’t_ meddle with. 

Magic that even Salazar, himself, didn’t dare to dabble in. 

Then, there were curses to turn one into a dementor. 

Which is arguably worse than a person becoming one on their own. It’s a magic that only a few have ever even _bothered to look into._ Most people- at least in Salazar's time- pointedly ignored that that sort of hellish magic even existed. 

That vile contemptible branch of magic, that damages someone else's soul to the point as to where they become a dementor, without a lick of damage on the casters own.

That magic is almost like a trade, an unwilling, phony _trade_. The caster gets the healing of their own soul by _forcing_ someone else to take the _complete withering and rotting_ _destruction of the caster's own soul_. 

That. 

That particular magic… 

That, Salazar cannot claim to have never tinkered with.


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you didn't realize, chapter five has been reworked and is longer. 
> 
> I would love it if you would go and check that out!

Hermione Granger… Brightest witch of her age.

For all that title's worth, she never saw this coming. And it seems neither did the new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. 

Professor R. J. Lupin. He looks worn, tired, and covered with a few too many scars. Yet his moss-green eyes are alert and wary. There is also a spark of… well, of  _ something  _ in them that Hermione, even with all of her smarts,  _ cannot identify.  _ It scares her, that emotion that she can’t seem to place or understand. Though, her fear may have something to do in conjunction with her extreme fear of not knowing things when, in all reality, she really should know it. This is one of the many,  _ many  _ reasons as to why she’s always inhaling books like their nutrition. In a way, she supposes they are.

Within the dancing flames light, the Professor’s face probably looks more battered and worn than it actually is. He has already driven away what he claimed to be a dementor- with a patronus. Hermione has read all about patronuses, they are supposed to be very hard to conjure, and well… she didn’t think that he could do it… with the worn and tired look. Yet here he is, Professor R. J. Lupin, conjuring one so seamlessly. Hermione, in the end, does agree with him on the notion of that  _ creature  _ actually being a dementor. They felt just like how her DADA textbook described, an admittedly rather good textbook- far better than Quirrell’s anyways- and one that she supposed this shabby looking professor assigned. 

He eventually had gotten around to offering everyone chocolate, a mild relief for the effects that a dementor has. Hermione took hers gratefully, the effects of those… Those  _ things  _ are truly awful. 

Nibbling on the edge of her chocolate, she warily watches Harry. Professor Lupin said that he  _ should  _ wake up soon, the effects of a dementor on him are going to be worse than anyone else in the compartment. After all, he did say that, “Harry has the worst memories and experiences than anyone else in this compartment. We shouldn’t worry about him, for the time being. If he doesn’t wake up and I’m not back, get me. I need to talk to the driver, excuse me…” Then excused himself, swiftly making his way to the driver. 

And Harry… Harry hasn’t woken up. He’s still ridged, still ghostly white. 

Oh… Wait… Was that a twitch? 

Maybe he’s waking up… 

She watches closely for a minute longer, everyone is talking to each other and coaxing Ginny down from a shell-shocked state of panic. Hermione would try as well… But she  _ has _ , for a matter of fact, come to terms with the fact that she is not the most people-oriented person. Harry and Ron are better with people than she is and that is saying something. Harry’s like a scared cat half the time- especially with physical affection and touches, (which worries Hermione, but it would be rude to bring it up)- and Ron has a complete lack of understanding of social cues and social etiquette.

Harry twitches again, just a finger.

It isn’t long until he’s on full out convulsions and spasms.

Oh. OH!

She really should get Professor Lupin, and yet everyone is panicking. Someone needs to be here to manage the chaos and that person might as well be her.

Have they all never dealt with a seizure before? She supposes that it makes sense, after all, the Wizarding World has remedies for almost everything, from what she’s seen.

Hermione, herself, has dealt with one before. It was one of her cousins. She was over at their house and babysitting them, when one of them fell down and launched into an epileptic episode. A grand mal seizure, he had been watching t.v. when it happened. Hermione remembered one of the textbooks her parents got her mentioning it and cleared away everything, called her own parents, and let it ride out. By the time her own parents had gotten there she had put them on their side as one of the… episodes was over. He had quickly fallen into another one. 

That was the scariest time in Hermione's life before knowing that she is, in fact, a witch, with magic and everything.

So here she is, sending Ron to fetch Professor Lupin and clearing away everything that Harry could possibly damage himself with. 

Feet up on the seats. Bags, trunks, carriers, up on the rack. Let Harry ride it out. These words quickly become the words of infinite wisdom that she repeats to herself.

Professor Lupin and Ron are there by the time Hermione persuaded Crookshanks back into his carrier and shoved him up onto the rack. It looks like they ran all the way from the front of the train to get here, but that's fine. At least they got here faster than she was expecting.

Professor Lupin goes white as a sheet when Ron moves out of the way and his eyes land on Harry. 

“You’re doing excellent, Miss…”

“Granger. Sir.”

“Yes, Miss Granger. I believe that we should alert Poppy about this…” 

Professor Lupin looks hopelessly lost, as he sends out another patronus, this one carrying a message she assumes.

“I’ve been trying to manage his seizure best I can, Professor. But… I’m afraid that it won’t be enough…” Hermione glances at Harry again, “he’s already going on longer than I thought… I’ve only ever dealt with one before…”

When Hermione looks at him again, she is relieved. Harry’s convulsions seem to be dying down a bit, hopefully soon they will be completely gone. 

“We should be at Hogwarts in ten minutes, Miss Granger.” He pauses and glances around at everyone in the compartment. “We should all be able to manage the crowd until then. At least, until Poppy can come.” Professor Lupin glances around again. “I assume that Poppy will be at the platform,”

Hermione nods jerkily and does her best, to monitor Harry. When his convulsions and spasms stop, she carefully tilts him onto his side, letting the built-up spit and whatever else drain out. It isn’t long before Hermione is hopping away, as the tremors pick back up again. Tilting him back onto his back is the last thing Hermione does, before he’s back into the thick of things. 

Hermione…

She’s never been this scared before. Not when Ron and Harry locked her in the first floor bathroom with a bloody  _ troll _ . Not when she had to solve that logic puzzle that Professor Snape crafted. Not when Ron had gotten thwacked over the head by the Queen in that absurd chess game. Not even when she found out that the monster in the Chamber of Secrets was a bloody  _ basilisk  _ . And she got petrified that time.

No, Hermione’s terrified out of her wits because she doesn’t know what’s happening. 

Professor Lupin’s voice breaks through the fog of dread, “-A minute to go, Miss Granger…”

Hermione anxiously watches Harry, until the train stops and she hears rushing around them. People getting off the train. 

Then the quick sharp taps of Madam Pomfrey’s shoes making their way towards them. 

“Miss Granger…” The matron's voice soothes through the cloud of anxiety. “I’ll take over from here, you’ve done well.”

Hermione finds herself being led off of the train, by whom she doesn’t know or process.

Harry doesn’t show up for the feast. He doesn’t show up in the morning either, Ron told her that he hadn’t even come to bed that night.

Hermione Granger… Brightest witch of her age.

And right now... She doesn’t even know if she can live up to that title, she doesn’t even know if she  _ deserves  _ the generous title of ‘Brightest Witch of Her Age’.


	7. Chapter Seven

Three Weeks.

Three weeks is how long it takes for one certain- and authentic- Harry Potter to awaken. 

Or, rather, one very specific Salazar Slytherin to vivify the body of Harry Potter with a wrenching jerk of his whole being. Salazar, in all of his infinite grace, falls off the bed.

Within falling off the, admittedly, rather plush bed, Salazar can’t find it in himself to calm down. To rationalize anything. All he’s seeing, feeling and reliving, is his own witch burning, for healing someone, for healing children.

Salazar remembers vividly the beginning. He remembers the first thing that made him realize, made him accept with all of his being and with a resolution in the depths of his bones that he was going to die, was the intense lack of air. Then, it was his blood starting to boil underneath his skin, his pours pushing out sweat, as if that’s going to help anything. After that he could feel the scratchy wool of his clothes blending into his flesh underneath the intense inferno, he remembers feeling his skin melting and charring, fusing onto his bones. Then the overwhelming numbness when his nerves are burnt, black and dead.

Salazar didn’t- doesn’t- even have the breath to scream, all of his shallow puffs of air are stolen by the extreme heat.

The fire, which was colored red like anger. Colored red like the emptiness in one's heart when all they can do is nothing but grief and mourn. Colored red like Godric’s hair.

Salazar can feel the panic set in, his body, his magic wanting to live far beyond the wants of his soul. He can feel the desperate need to do something, anything, before he turns to dust. Then there was the anger before the flames and smoke raged and ripped his life away.

And when Salazar comes to land, enough to feel cold tile beneath his palms, he can still feel the dancing, suffocating and bitter smoke still filling his lungs. It takes him far too many blinks and far too much time for it to click in his mind that; no, he is not there, with the smoke and flames. Not with the overpowering red and orange mottling his vision. And that he’s not with the rage and anger that clouded his head in his final moments at Raven's Rock.

No... He's no longer there, charring to a crisp and burning with all of the thoughts in his head flowing out of his mouth, swears and curses flowing freely, though non-magical, at Godric and Rowena. But never Helga, in the beginning at least, for she had been too kind, he doubted she had anything to do with his exile. She had never cared for pretty words from nobility and always saw their veiled threats and hidden cruelty. Always sought to understand Salazar. In the end he did curse her with the rest, cursed her for not doing anything. For not trying to stop Rowena and Godric’s want to kick him out onto the streets and rip him away from his home.

Something that, in the end, they succeeded in.

Though, however much Helga and Rowena’s knife to the back hurt, it would likely be forever Godric’s actions that hurt the worst. Far more than Helga and Rowena, for he let Godric  _ know  _ him. He had let Godric in, let him in farther than he had Helga and Rowena.

He thinks he might have cried, in those final moments. And he might be crying now, as his vision is far to blurry to be practical.

Salazar doesn’t think that he’s hallucinating the cool feeling of textured tile. As if he was hallucinating- which he doubts- it would be a very surreal hallucination. And, knowing his own mind, Salazar knows that the very idea of his own mind conjuring this is very unlikely. His own mind is a tormenting place, full of things that he doesn’t want to acknowledge much less deal with.

A lady- One genuine Madam Poppy Pomfrey, his lethargic brain oh so  _ helpfully  _ inputs- is bustling over to him. A worried, pinched look on her face. That is until she finally comes close enough to get a good look at him, and when she does, she looks so relieved and happy and Salazar suspects that she might actually  _ faint _ on him. Salazar, for all his cleverness is worth, can not for the life of him figure out  _ why _ she would have a reaction like this to him.

“Ah, Mr. Potter!” Salazar vaguely gets the notion that she’s talking to him, his brain spluttering into gear- verifies this with a sense of familiarity and just  _ knowing _ . There is also the problem of having- most definitely pertaining- memories inside his head that  _ are not _ his own. Or maybe they are, there is only one way to find out exactly. “You’re finally conscious! You had us all quite worried…” She prattles on, oblivious to Salazar's dilemma with his memories. 

She fixes him with a stern look that gives Salazar the impression of Helga when she was particularly exasperated with him and saying; “Oh,  _ Sal, Sally, Salazar _ ! You  _ will not leave this room until I am done with you. _ ” Those words were usually quickly followed with her shoving him unceremoniously onto one of the many straw mattresses that she had acquired for almost everywhere in the castle. She followed the bulldozing him back onto the bed with a, “Ruddy, Sal, stay here, you jittery fool, or so god help you,” underneath her breath. The very notion of a hint of Helga in this woman knocks the breath out of Salazar. She doesn’t look like how he remembered Helga, and surely she wasn’t a relative or child of Helga’s. This Madam Pomfrey, for one, has mousy brown hair, rather than the sun-bleached blonde of Helga and her child. Madam Pomfrey’s features were also a lot more relaxed than he ever remembered Helga being.

Helga, who had been quite the fantastic hunter and cook, and provided them with fresh meat for dinners and such. Salazar could still remember all of the furs and leathers that she wore from her kills. Helga had always refused to waste anything. Bones for broths and only when they were done were handed over to Rowena for her- in Salazar’s opinion- tasteless art of divination, every ounce of meat eaten, and furs and leathers made into wearable garments. 

“Now, Mr. Potter, you  _ will  _ be  _ staying put _ in the Hospital Wing until the time when I deem you fit enough to walk out of that door.” She says this briskly and sternly, almost as if she’s expecting a fight. A little whisper in his mind says that, yes, she is expecting a fight. A fight that Salazar has no plans to give her, after all, he knows the lengths that Helga went to keep him restrained onto a bed when she was healing him. She even warded Hogwarts’ large Healing Chamber (Which was far too large, as had been his opinion before they actually started teaching, an opinion that Helga had silenced with a sharp and reprimanding look) to prevent him from getting out. Out through the windows or otherwise, as to why the windows, Salazar will not explain the embarrassing story as to why. In fact, he point-blank refuses to let his brain have him relive it. 

“Ah… Yes, Madam...” Salazar mumbles, pulling himself back onto- the considerably more plush and comfortable- bed. Madam Pomfrey at those words is positively beaming with approval and looks absolutely pleased with him promising to follow her words. Although she does seem a little suspicious that he’s just saying that for show.

“Now, Mr. Potter, I’m going to let your head of house know that you are continuous and more importantly  _ lucid _ .” She bustles away leaving Salazar mouthing the word ‘lucid’. So, he assumes that he had been, in fact, awake at some point but not reasonable enough in the mind or possibly the body to be able to respond. Salazar does not remember ever even waking up (At least not properly, if at all) so he’s inclined to believe the former.

Which leaves him with the next question- who’s the head of his house? Sparing a glance around the room, Salazar quickly deduces that he might have enough time to delve into his and the ones that are sitting like a weighty stone in the back of his mind that is unmistakably  _ not  _ his.

Closing his eyes, Salazar lets the memories flow. 

**_A little boy with wild, curly black hair and emerald green eyes-one that can’t possibly be more than eight years old- locked in the cupboard for as long as he can remember. Yelled at for everything as silly and burning food when learning how to cook to doing something as little as turning his teacher's wig blue. The little boy goes without meals for a hefty amount of time for that one, his little body is feeling the effects of the fiendfyre-like hunger licking up the walls of his stomach and crawling through his abdomen into his thorax._ **

**_That little boy is now a little closer to eleven, still too small for his age, wearing his cousins old and ratty hand-me-downs. He watches enviously when his cousin- who can’t be more than a bloated pig in Salazar’s eyes- has what looks to be a thousand presents to the little boy whose room was still the cupboard under the stairs._ **

**_And that little boy’s cousin counts the unjustly vast amount of presents. What occasion was there to even warrant this amount of gifts? Salazar can’t place what holiday this must be, perhaps it’s something new?_ **

**_There are thirty-seven presents. More than this little boy has ever gotten in a lifetime. No one’s ever even gotten him a present before, and he longs to know what it’s like. What it’s like to get a present from someone else on his birthday (Ah, so that’s what it is), to know what it’s like to even have friends and family who cares like that._ **

**_Yet, even with the obvious injustice and unnecessary cruelty that is being dealt in bulk by his ‘family’, his bloated cousin had the gall to throw a complete tantrum about how “That’s one less from last year!”_ **

**_His aunt is quick to smother his cousin and add two more presents to that thirty-seven. It quickly becomes thirty-nine. Thirty-nine more than Harry- that’s the boy's name, not what he had thought it was before he was enrolled in primary (he had always thought it had been ‘freak’ or ‘boy’)- ever had or, likely, will ever have._ **

**_Jealousy bubbles up from the tips of his toes and into his throat, choking him until tears are threatening to spill. But he doesn’t cry, he can’t- he knows that if he does he’ll get the wrong side of Uncle Vernon’s obese fists or the backside of Aunt Petunia’s frying pan._ **

**_Harry busies himself with creating a lavish breakfast for his uncle, aunt, and cousin- his ‘family’... if they can even be called that._ **

**_Soon after the trip to the zoo- after his cousin Dudley’s completely excessive birthday celebration- they are being chased all over Britain. From the Dursley household, to a rundown hotel, and finally, to a rock in the middle of the sea. They’re running from letters. From letters that are addressed to one singular Harry James Potter. Harry may not know what they mean, but Petunia and Vernon sure seem like they do. Although, it seems as though Dudley wasn’t granted knowledge on what they are about either._ **

**_Harry got his first birthday present when the ominous ‘they’ caught up to him, and in a fashion, the Dursleys. It was a cake, the present. A cake! A cake from a giant man named Hagrid and it was all just for him. Harry felt like he might cry, and he was pretty sure that a few big fat tears splashed their way onto the squished cake. It wasn’t perfect, but it was his and nobody could take it away from him, and that made it perfect._ **

**_Then, finally, he’s getting sorted at Hogwarts… a place where he’s normal. Well… not exactly. He’s famous here, famous for some reason or another that he doesn’t feel as though he had much control over. But that doesn’t bother him, all that much as he finally has a home. A place that is full of people just like him._ **

**_It was a close call, but he’s sorted into Gryffindor and he’s happy, more than happy, in fact, he’s ecstatic! He finally has a place where he belongs and won't get shoved back into the cupboard for doing something that's normal here. And he has made a friend right off the bat! A friend with wild red hair and a huge and seemingly rambunctious family, a friend by the name of Ron._ **

**_It’s his second year at Hogwarts, now. He has two friends and they are fantastic friends… Even with their flaws and all, they’re good friends. Harry’s first friends. Ones that he could proudly proclaim as his. That minuscule fact sends a little thrill through him every time he thinks about it._ **

**_Harry is fighting off a basilisk- one that Salazar recognizes as his very own Ulyssa. She had been a beautiful snake- intelligent too- it just seems that she was alone for far too long, long enough to become desperate for some form of company- and this new, improved Harry Potter got a basilisk fang crammed into his skinny arm. He could feel the painful venom working its way through his system. Yet, he’s still brave enough and coherent enough, to rip the fang out and plunge it into a cursed diary._ **

**_Fawkes- Headmaster Dumbledore’s phoenix- cries on his shoulder, healing it and vanishing the venom._ **

**_Now it’s Harry’s third year and he’s blown up his Aunt Marge like filling a balloon with helium._ **

**_Then the train, seeing the dementor and finally blacking out._ **

Salazar is ripped back to the present by a sharp tapping of two sets of heals. One tapping is short and precise well another is more frantic and ecstatic sounding.

Well… If nothing else, Salazar now knows who he  _ is _ . If such a thing is to be considered. He is, supposedly, Harry Potter. With a bearing of his surroundings secured it seems that how he became Harry Potter is the thing that remains unknown.

The footsteps come closer and Salazar manages by a hair to lock down the swell of memories and emotions that threaten to overwhelm him for later. He could really sympathize with the boy who he (is?) has become. As Salazar himself had a childhood closely similar. The difference being the time frames and Salazar had actually been with his parents. Not some relatives.

He looks up the moment the footsteps come close enough that Salazar assumes it would be appropriate for his head to snap up. A stern-looking woman in wine rose-red robes is swishing her way towards him. Really, there's no other way to explain it, her robes are swirling around her legs and feet, and she is expertly  _ swishing  _ her way towards him. Madam Pomfrey is on her tail, she looks ready to burst with some sort of fury, she seems to be telling the tall stern witch- who is supposedly Professor McGonagall, as his brain sluggishly replies to his silent question- off. 

Madam Pomfrey, however, does shut up with her hushed whispers when they are within his hearing range, at least when they are close enough that he might be able to make out what they’re whispering about. 

“Mr. Potter, you’ve given us all quite the fright.” Professor McGonagall says in a roguish Scottish accent.

“Ah, yes, I suppose I have.” Is Salazar's muttered response, barely audible enough for McGonagall to even hear him.

“You were out for three weeks after getting quite the shock from a dementor.” That.  _ Those words  _ being gently spoke by Madam Pomfrey is what startles Salazar out of his stupor.

“T-Three weeks!?” He splutters, the words clawing their way out of his mouth before he has the chance to think.

Professor McGonagall, to her credit, only raises one meticulously plucked eyebrow at him. “Yes, Mr. Potter. Three weeks.”

Madam Pomfrey finally steps in, “I thought, Minerva, I ought to let you know that Mr. Potter should remain here. In the Hospital Wing, for at least until tonight for monitoring.” She then looks at Salazar, “and you, Mr. Potter, ought to be thankful that you’re even awake. Your magic was volatile and violent, so much so that nobody could lay so much as a scanning spell on you. We had to ride out your seizures out the muggle way.” She says this with a clipped tone, which is earnestly angry, and Salazar can give her some leeway for that. After all, it is much more practical and much,  _ much _ easier to deal with things with magic. Health-related or not.

Madam Pomfrey continues after a beat of silence, “you will be able to see your friends, against my… better judgment. They have been worried sick and should know that you are up.” She says this with a pained look, then glancing at a gleaming golden pocket watch, she sighs. “It’s lunch at the moment, so I will have the house elves bring up some soup for you, as I don’t believe you will be able to stomach anything much soldier than that.” She turns around in a flourish, whisking away to her office at the back of Healing Chamber, she continues, “your friends will be along shortly Mr. Potter.”

Salazar sighs out a little breath of relief as she leaves, as he viscously attempted to not utter a word or anything throughout that entire exchange. Only nodding when it seemed appropriate. Professor McGonagall leaves as well after a heartbeat or two of uncomfortable silence. 

Soon enough there is a commotion behind the comically large doors of the Healing Chamber. Pushing open the tall, solid wood doors is a girl with copious amounts of bushy brown hair. Hermione Granger if his brain is serving him correctly. And following soon after her… he sees a chaotic overwhelming head swathed with red hair. Salazar's heart stutters, stops, then sputtering back into existence beats far too fast. Then the man sporting the flaming red hair turns, and the spell is broken. He’s not Godric… The Godric that knew everything about him. The Godric that knew why he hated ba- no- muggles so much. The Godric that  _ knew _ how the muggle family, that he was so  _ affectionately  _ born into, treated him. The Godric that knew  _ why _ Salazar walked with a limp,  _ why _ Salazar let his hair grow and grow and  _ grow  _ until Godric himself cut it into a manageable level. The Godric that  _ knew why  _ and  _ still betrayed him _ . The Godric that his heart still skips a beat over, despite knowing perfectly well that it shouldn’t.

Still… Godric’s hair was the same shade of almost-but-not-quite wine red, always a few shades too  _ bright _ .

They're both walking to him and after a delayed tick of time, his brain stumbles into a functioning state. The red-head isn't Godric Gryffindor but is actually one Ronald Bilius Weasley.

They both look a mixture of pleased, relieved, and astoundingly happy to see him.

It… unnerves Salazar for some reason.

Maybe it’s the red-hair that’s the exact same hue as Godric’s had been all that time ago. 


	8. Ch. 8: Bury My Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for anyone that finds this a bit boring! I had a load of online school work and that's why it took so long! This chapter... It's all about leading up to quite a dramatic event.

As they crawled nearer, Salazar must have had an odd look painting his new features. Arriving at this conclusion didn’t help matters as the one with fluffy, unruly dark brown hair- Hermione Granger, he believes- her expression melts from pleased, relieved and a hat full of stars happy to a southward whirlwind of confused, concerned and anxious. The emotions warping her face flit on and off so rapidly and openly that it’s a bit of an overwhelming experience for Salazar just to witness. He can’t imagine what it must be like for her.

Salazar is going to credit his dysfunctional emotion skill to Rowena. He had after all met Rowena first, and she left a lasting impression on how to read people. Stars, even Godric wasn’t so open all the time. Salazar was quite used to needing to plunk together puzzle pieces until they made a cohesive picture- as that was mostly near the end what Rowna, Helga and Godric let him work with. 

In the beginning Godric had been the one to display his rambunctious emotions openly around the others. Soon after this display Helga followed in stride. Only he and Rowena seemed to be uncomfortable displaying any other emotion than calm.

Of course, this didn’t mean that they didn’t, eventually he and Rowena loosened up- around the same time in fact. Salazar can still remember the first time that he laughed- actually laughed, a loud, broken, chopped up sort of thing- in front of the others. Godric had said something entirely too hilarious to Salazar's sleep-deprived and wine-addled mind, and he belted out a hearty, hoarse laugh. One that bubbled from the pits of his stomach and coaxed its way through his lips. 

He had felt light then. He had been happy and warm in emotions, because the castle was, for a fact, cold during the winter. Salazar could still taste the tangible happiness that he had back then.

And then the fighting broke out. Their students were getting killed by their families and everyone- besides Salazar, himself- were turning a blind fucking eye. It hurt. It hurt to know that he, himself, could have been one of those students that were strangled in their bed on winter break and none of them would have batted an eyelash. 

So he started rallying, fighting and attempting to persuade them to let the muggleborn students stay in the castle, full time, no exceptions. Only leaving if they were to be visiting the stalls and small farm houses that sprung up next to the castle of their old students. Ones that couldn’t bear to leave Hogwarts, so they built a small settlement near it.

They had started getting cold and distant from him. Even if Godric would still come to Salazar, drunk and stressed, in need of an outlet. One that Salazar had foolishly let him have, thinking that Godric would never have shoved him away. He had. In the end. 

And Salazar had never seen it coming, he thought he could read Godric, because he had  _ known _ Godric. Salazar had thought that he knew Godric’s tells and Salazar thought that he knew what the twitching of his lips meant when he was trying to force down a smile in a ‘serious’ situation. Though, looking back on it, the last few days that he had been in the acquaintance of Godric the lip twitches and brow furrows were probably him holding down a grimious. 

Salazar gets snapped back into reality when Not-Godric shouts at him, an ear deafening thing.

“OI, HARRY!” 

Salazar’s head snaps up so fast it’s a miracle that he didn’t break his neck. An ache nestles its way between his lungs and into his heart, as he watches the messy flaming red hair. Hermione is muttering to him about being insensitive.

“He could still be in shock, Ronald. You shouldn’t yell…” She was saying, trailing off with a warm smile as she drew closer.

Close enough that he could hear her muttering.

Suddenly it was all quite a lot, and Salazar was having trouble breathing. The matron of this wing- Madam Pomfrey- rushes over, extracting herself from the conversation she was holding with what looked like several staff members. Salazar could pick out a few that he recognized from Harry’s memories. That one in the black was Professor Snape, the one next to him- a short, chubby woman- was Professor Sprout, then next to her, closest to him, was a short Professor- Flitwick, Salazar believed the name was- behind him was another Professor, a certain monster of a man, Hagrid. Then there were the few he didn’t know, but vaguely recognized and thought he remembered. 

The one standing next to Snape he vaguely could recognize as a descendant of Lady Anette ‘Call me Anney’, she had been Lady to the Head of House of Trelawney. Lady Anette had been quite out spoken in his time. Taking care of the estate in finances, hiring staff and raising the children. She was also quite political and well learned. Salazar had known her as a Seer and was quite interested if this potential descendant of Lady Anette had inherited the ability. He was fairly sure that she was a descendant of Lady Anette, after all this woman had the same nose, eyes and hair color. Her face shape was vaguely reminiscent of this as well. Putting off the fact that she was covered in various bangles, fabrics, chimes and accessories, not to mention the large bottle-like glasses she had perched on her face that seemed to magnify her eyes at least ten times. She looked at least somewhat respectable if not wiry, but then again Salazar does vaguely remember her husband- whom of which he only met twice- being a wiry sort of man.

Salazar must have been staring at her for quite some time as Ron- not Godric- put a hand on his shoulder and shook him a bit. Madam Pomfrey looks slightly worried, her brows furrowed slightly.

“Are you alright, Mr. Potter?” She asks with an air of knowing that he is, in fact, not ‘alright’.

“Yeah, fine. Just got lost in thought.” Salazar replies, trying his damndest to act like the Harry Potter that they knew for- what three years? Yeah that sounds about right- three years and counting now.

  
Madam Pomfrey, for the record, tutts like she doesn’t believe him in the slightest. It seems that Salazar may or may not be able to get away from her scrutiny… He’ll hope for the best.

Salazar manages to ward her away with a charming smile and reassurances of; “Yes, I’m quite sure,” and “Yes, I’ll let you know if anything happens.” As well as, “Yes, I’ll stay put, for as long as you need.” Then finally one last reassurance of, “Yes, you may do a in-depth health scan, if you so wish.”

She lifted her brows at that, and then as if a dog leaping for a bone, “You’re quite sure, Mr. Potter?”

“Well, you said that I don’t have any health records here, and I don’t remember ever going to a doctor or otherwise in the muggle world. Never been to a healer before either.” Salazar dips his head at this, “I, on great authority, believe myself to be in functioning condition if not then we’ll cross that bridge at that time and just be happy to have caught it.”

Hermione, in all of her sneaky grace, was watching this whole exchange with big, conflicted, yet fascinated eyes. Making it glaringly obvious that she was without an ounce of stealth listening in on the conversation. Ron, for the most part, looks like he’s bored out of his mind. 

That’s something that Salazar is infinitely thankful for as he doesn’t know how much of Ron he’ll be able to stand. Hermione on the other hand might be bearable. Ronald, on record, doesn’t have the best friendship streak in Salazar’s eyes.    
  
And, also, on record, Salazar has never much cared for Quidditch. It was something that was just barely being invented and fine-tuned in his own time. Thus Salazar had rigorously, and with an almost religious conviction avoided it. There was no fucking way that he was going to play a game, fifty feet plus in the air, with balls trying to bludgen people off their brooms and fall to a grusome death. No, Salazar hadn’t and won’t play Quidditch. He knows he’s on the team, but that was Harry Potter, and Harry Potter enjoyed Quidditch. Salazar Slytherin, however, values his life, body and mind too much to put it at risk for being bludgeoned to death or beyond repair.

Salazar glances at Hermione the moment she is opening her mouth to say something. Salazar cuts her off.

  
“If this is about staying, Hermione, I’ll let you know that you can. I’d rather have you around because you can keep quiet about things and be a witness than-” Salazar cuts off eyeing the red-headed boy- “- Ron there.”

Hermione looks like she’d just been given Christmas. “I- You- I mean- You’d let me?” She says gaping like a fish.

“Yes…?” Salazar replies to her querry with a confused look, wasn’t it obvious? It’s not like he had family and Hermione would probably be the one to understand and keep  _ quiet  _ about Harry’s- now his, Salazar supposes- abusive relatives. 

“I- uh- yes, Harry, I’d love to! It’ll be nice to see a procedure done up close, I’ve been researching healing and diagnostic charms, but it’ll be completely different being able to see them in action.” She babbles. 

“Brilliant.”

“I have all of your missed work, I can walk you through it if you’d like, Harry.” She looks at him with worried eyes again. “You missed three weeks after all, and school is important. No matter how much you and Ron like to procrastinate your work.” 

Salazar nods at this, “Yes, I think I’ll take you up on that offer.”

“We were all terribly worried, Harry do you know if you have a history of seizures?”

She is about to go on in explanation until Pomfrey is bustling back and waving the teachers off. It’s almost as if Pomfrey had heard the ghost of a conversation revolving around medical records. 

“I think, Mr. Potter, that we should get that addressed, as I said before. I do not have any filing of a medical record for you. The only things in that file have occurred here, in the school.” She gives him a very sharp look. “I will be taking you up on your offer of an in-depth scan, Mr. Potter.” She pauses then continues, “this scan will be a St. Mungos level scan. One for patients they are monortering. I feel it necessary due to your lack of a record.” She pauses again looking disgruntled. “As well as the fact that, according to yourself, you have never been to a muggle or magical healer of any kind.”

Salazar nods along, humming in response to her silences. “That’s reasonable.”

“Now, Mr. Potter. I should warn you that this scan is going to have an unpleasant feeling. A bit like jumping into a ghost.” She glances at Hermione and Ron, Ron who has, in fact, miraculously dozed off in his chair. “Would you prefer your friends to stay? Emotional support, and such?” She inquires with a look like she popped a full lemon in her mouth. It quickly became blatantly obvious, to Salazar, that she didn’t approve of this. But she expected to find the worst.

“It has also come to my attention that you have never done a physical. We shall be going through all of the necessary spell work for one as well. If this will make you uncomfortable around your friends, then I suggest sending them off.”

“Just… Just Hermione.”

Hermione looks over the fucking moon about this. A little too ecstatic if Salazar’s going to be honest with himself.

The matron hums, purses her lips, looks like she’s about to say something then relents. “As you wish.” With a swish of her wand she snaps shut the curtains and places a silencing spell around them. Effectively locking Ron out.


	9. Authors Note! (Please read)

Hey! So I've finally gotten a beta for my work! They'll be helping me out by rereading what I've already written and published, as well as things for the future! So this story will be getting a reboot, to say to make things flow smoother and add more lore! Everything that's already written in will stay so no need to worry if you don't want to reread!


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